


Le Ciel Attendra

by antigrav_vector



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Space, Canon-Typical Violence, Enemies to Friends, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Get Together, Hurt Tony, Hurt Tony Stark, Identity Porn, Identity Reveal, M/M, Presumed Dead, Secret Identity, Self-Sacrifice, Self-Sacrificing Tony Stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-07 05:05:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8784241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antigrav_vector/pseuds/antigrav_vector
Summary: The 3rd war against the Chitauri is well underway and Captain Steve Rogers is not overly pleased when Governor Fury throws a wrench into the works. He and his team are a well-oiled machine and they don't need anyone else working with them. Not to mention that now is possibly the worst possible time to start breaking in new team members.When Steve meets said team members, it gets even worse.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gottalovev](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gottalovev/gifts).



> My Cap/Iron Man 2016 Holiday Fic exchange gift for gottalovev. They asked for a space AU, and, well, I tried. This took a turn on me, and doesn't _quite_ follow the original prompt, because I ended up incorporating a few more of the 'wants' than were in your prompt. Here's hoping that you like it!
> 
> With thanks to my beta, [Veldeia](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Veldeia).

He'd still been under when the fighting had started, and Steve considered that a tactical error of the greatest proportions.

After the end of the first and second Chitauri wars, he, Bucky, Peggy and Gabe had consented to being put into cryosleep. The plan had been for them to be revived in time of need. Somehow, somewhere, that plan had gone massively sideways.

Staring out the viewport at the remains of the Chitauri scouting party they had ambushed, Steve bit back a stream of curses.

It hadn't been until just last month that he and his team had been defrosted, and by then the fighting had progressed to a point where they had had to scramble to gain the upper hand. He and Bucky had spent the entirety of the last month trying to get a handle on what had happened and where they were needed.

Governor Fury, in his infinite wisdom, had decreed that they would be working with his new elite response team, code named the Avengers. The two teams had yet to meet, though, and Steve found he wasn't particularly unhappy about that. They had plenty on their respective plates.

Fury was getting impatient, though. As Phillips' successor and the man in charge of both the extraplanetary defense force, SHIELD, and the space colony established to support them, he had his own concerns about the lack of cooperation between his two strike teams. 

Fury had finally gotten impatient enough to put his foot down about things last week. He had decided that he was issuing Steve's team new Starktech battle suits, and that had triggered a flood of new information Steve had to absorb. He'd gone to the 'net in search of information about the battle suits and instead found seemingly everything but, ranging from salacious tabloid pieces about who Stark had on his arm that week all the way to articles about his arrest for possession of various illegal narcotics at age 21.

It had taken him a while to work past that knowledge.

Their new 'teammates', as it were, being sponsored by Stark? That had been a tough pill to swallow. Steve had been very tempted to refuse outright, once he'd read about Stark, for all that he knew intimately how biased the gossip rags could be.

Hard on the heels of that series of discoveries, Fury had decreed that there should be a meeting between the teams once and for all, on the grounds that they would need to at least know what the others looked like so as not to shoot them out of the sky. He hadn't given Steve the opportunity to refuse.

Steve wasn't sure whether he was more annoyed or apprehensive about that meeting. He'd been given dossiers on all of the other team's members -- and their individual battle suits -- but one. One was nearly entirely redacted, a page of black ink on which only scattered words were declassified, even to _him_. It was nothing short of astonishing; Steve's own clearance was about as high as it could get, short of being Governor himself.

And yet, this Iron Man seemed to rate a level of secrecy to eclipse even that.

The others -- SHIELD agent Romanov, code name Black Widow and SHIELD agent Barton, code name Hawkeye -- were practically open books in comparison, for all that much of their dossiers were also withheld. Their information was easier to work with, though, allowing Steve enough insight to at least plan out how to integrate them into his team, if need be. The two teams actually complemented one another well. Gabe was their comms man, fluent in a number of languages and a deft hand with technology. Bucky, as Steve's right hand man, tended to do what was needed and do it well, though he was happiest in a perch or stealth bubble with his rifle. 

The two SHIELD agents were much the same in temperament as his teammates, from what Steve could gather, and based on the information he'd been given, he was inclined to pair Bucky with Romanov and Peggy with Barton. It would effectively mean they could be in two places at once and have much the same skill sets to work with. And it would mean one of his team members with each of the unknown free agents, which made Steve feel much better about the scenario. Granted, it did mean that if the SHIELD agents turned out not to be what they seemed, he could lose both his team members, but he knew his team and their capabilities. He trusted Bucky and Peggy to handle whatever the universe threw at them and come home alive.

He himself planned to take this Iron Man on, with Gabe as his backup. The only information in Iron Man's dossier that was at all relevant or helpful was that he never removed his power suit. In that situation, Steve reasoned, he would need at least one team member at his back.

Even as he pronounced it settled in the silence of his thoughts, though, Steve resented needing to play things this defensively in the first place. He would rather have turned his attention toward dealing with the threat.

The Chitauri had found a new wormhole in a distant sector of the Solar System to stream through, this time, and were taking every inch of advantage that they could, sending whole squadrons through at a time to harass the SHIELD fleet and attack the SHIELD support colony which housed their repair bays, supply depot, medical facilities, and all manner of other vital resources. 

Scowling, Steve turned away from the viewport and ran a frustrated hand through his hair.

Fury had better be right about this.

\------

"Captain, are you even listening to me?" Fury demanded, glaring at him with his good eye.

"Pretty sure he's been staring at the wall for the last half hour," Iron Man put in, his tone conveying laughter, even through the voice modulator of the brightly red- and gold-lacquered battle suit he wore.

Steve growled under his breath, and repeated Fury's last sentence verbatim. "Satisfied?"

The borderline rudeness got him another more vicious glare, but Fury went back to his briefing. "Keep your tone civil, Rogers, or I'm revoking your access to that suit I offered you and you can fight without one, vacuum or no." Iron Man made a sound like he wanted to speak and thought better of it, which Fury ignored. "Your assignment is simple. Get to the wormhole and stop the Chitauri using it to overrun our forces. How you do so is your problem. Your only restriction is on SHIELD casualties. We'll need every last man, woman, and agent to deal with the Chitauri that are already in-system. You've got your little minesweeper class ship in hand already. Use her wisely."

"Sir." Steve nodded, and saw Iron Man mirror the gesture in his peripheral vision. "Anything else we need to know?"

"Our intel is limited, and you're going to have to acquire yours in the field." Fury gave Peggy and Romanov a nod. "You have information specialists at your disposal. Use them."

\------

From the meeting, Steve had retreated directly to his ship, leaving the others to talk if they wished. He had no desire to remain in that room any longer. Pre-mission nerves nearly always caught up to him, and this time they'd hit harder than usual, what with all the new elements in play that he simply didn't know yet. 

There were so many ways that this could go wrong, starting with interpersonal conflicts and ranging all the way up to catastrophic failure of their battle suits.

He stopped short in his tracks on seeing Iron Man waiting for him at the ship's airlock. How had that guy gotten here so fast? Steve knew for a fact that he'd taken the directest route through the station, and Iron Man had still been in the conference room when he'd left it. Steve raised an eyebrow at him. "Not feeling social?"

Iron Man laughed outright. "I've never been one for meet-and-greets. No one likes shaking hands with a suit of armour."

Against his will, Steve found himself starting to warm up to this guy. "So you decided to stalk me back to my ship?"

"Nah," Iron Man's lingering grin was audible, "it's not stalking if I got here first."

Rolling his eyes, Steve stepped up to the airlock and started it cycling. "I suppose that's not incorrect," he conceded, "but it remains a social faux pas, you know."

"Like you care." Iron Man waved away the objection. "I've seen your file and I know your stance: as long as the job gets done, the rest is moot."

Steve couldn't easily object, so he shrugged. "So you think you know me," he shot back. "You'll find that there's a lot more to me than that."

Steve stepped into the airlock and Iron Man followed.

"The armours your team has been issued have been loaded into bay 2 in the hold, along with the equipment needed for their maintenance," Iron Man said, changing the topic entirely.

Steve found he was oddly relieved by that. "What," he replied, "the whole kit and caboodle including the mechanic needed to run a repair shop?"

"Effectively, yes." Iron Man nodded.

"Wait, so who's the mechanic?" Steve wanted to know. "No one but you three was added to our passenger manifest."

"Me."

Steve looked sharply at Iron Man as the inner airlock gate opened. "You?"

"Yes, _me_. Why does everyone have such a hard time understanding that?"

Steve wasn't sure he believed a word of this. "You can operate the machinery while wearing your battle suit?"

"Sure. And I have J to help with the delicate things."

Steve knew his expression darkened. "You smuggled someone onto my ship?"

Steve got the impression Iron Man was rolling his eyes. "No. J is my helper AI."

That made Steve pause. Helper AIs had only just been in their infancy when he'd gone under the second time, and the opinion of the populace had been that it was an impractical fad. "I thought those were given up on decades ago."

"By most people, yeah," Iron Man said, and then went silent.

Steve tried to engage him in conversation a few more times, intrigued by the vague indirect hints Iron Man had kept dropping about his past, but apparently that comment about helper AIs had been the tipping point. All Steve's conversational gambits got out of the man were stony silence.

\------

Six hours, some sleep, and a refuel later, they were underway. Iron Man had taken up residence in the suit bay, brusquely introduced all of them to their suits and the capabilities they had, and then turned them out on their ears.

Steve had stared at the cargo bay door for several seconds afterward, baffled, before Bucky had laughed at him and dragged him away. "Come on," Bucky'd told him, "leave the weirdo alone with his machines. Barton's apparently found a way to get the galley computer to spit out pizza, and I haven't had any in decades."

Iron Man was turning out to be a puzzle. Albeit one that seemed to contain pieces cut from about five separate jigsaws, but still a puzzle. Steve had never been able to resist a mystery.

Indirectly asking Barton and Romanov about Iron Man over pizza had resulted in a lot of amused looks, no matter how much Steve had insisted that he only wanted to know so he could incorporate Iron Man in his strategizing properly.

After a few minutes, he gave up the attempt resolving to try again another time.

\------

To Steve's surprise, the three newcomers integrated fairly quickly into the routine he and his team had established aboard ship. Or, at least the two SHIELD agents did. Iron Man kept mostly to himself, preferring to isolate himself in the cargo bay that housed the battle suits for reasons he shared with no one.

Romanov refused to comment when he asked her about it.

More intrigued with each new tidbit of information he uncovered about his mysterious new teammate, Steve chose to view Romanov's silence as a move intended to protect her teammate rather than an infraction against Steve's command of his ship and all aboard her.

Barton, who'd seen the exchange, had come up to Steve once his partner had left the room. "Give it up, Cap. Iron Man's identity is off limits. Even to us. You don't stand a chance in hell of convincing him to tell you, either. I've tried."

"You, of all people," Steve shot back, "should know the importance of knowing who's fighting beside you."

"And I'm telling you, it _doesn't matter_. Not in this case. Whoever he is, Iron Man has had our backs on a lot of missions, and done everything in his power to make sure we got home alive. Even to the point of getting his dumb metal ass hurt so we didn't. Let it go."

Rather than answer, Steve nodded.

Barton, seeing the tactic for what it was, huffed at him. "Whatever, man, but don't say I didn't warn you."

"Noted."

Who the hell was this guy to inspire such loyalty in a pair of SHIELD agents? Steve had yet to meet a SHIELD agent that wasn't jaded and cynical. To get a SHIELD agent to trust was far from an easy task, and these two were _protecting_ Iron Man. From _him_.

Steve's curiousity was well and truly piqued, now.

\------

Two Adjusted Standard Days of flight time later, as they approached the outer edges of Chitauri controlled space, Steve asked everyone -- including Iron Man -- to assemble in the tiny galley. "We need a plan," he said plainly, when everyone was settled and watching him. "Fury's only restriction was that we couldn't get any SHIELD agents killed, but that doesn't really have much to recommend it when it comes to giving us a suggested modus operandi."

Peggy gave him a sardonic look. "What, so your usual sledgehammer approach is out?"

The quip got a laugh out of Bucky and a snort out of Iron Man. Steve restrained the urge to glare them into submission. "It's not _out_ per se. We'll do things that way if we have to. I want to know what suggestions the rest of you have."

Barton shrugged. "Well, my response to most things is 'if it moves and it shouldn't, shoot it'. I'm not really the brains of this operation."

"Agent Romanov?" Steve turned to her next.

"I'm a spy, Captain," she replied, "not a front line fighter or a tactician. My work takes place in the shadows. I'll leave the flashy show-stopping heroics to you."

Bucky gave her an appreciative look. "I'm with Clint," he put in, and Steve was unsurprised to note that he was on a first name basis with the other sniper. "Tactics are your job; mine is keeping you in one piece long enough to get the show-stopping heroics done."

Gabe nodded. "I'm just the comms guy, Cap. I can fight, but I'm better at logistics than heroics."

Giving up on getting any help from that quarter, Steve turned to the only person in the room who'd kept quiet. "Iron Man?"

There was a brief silence, as though Iron Man was carefully weighing his words, before he spoke. "Well, they've found a wormhole to climb through like the roaches they are," he said rhetorically. "If we slam it closed on their fingertips, they'll be in a world of trouble."

Peggy nodded approvingly. "Sound plan, but how do we do that?"

"Well, wormholes are areas where the fabric of the spacetime continuum is so strongly bent by gravity that it's possible to cross between entirely different areas of space. That can be disrupted with a tachyon burst, or a graviton bomb." Iron Man spread his hands apart. "We have neither."

"So what do you have in mind?" Steve pursued the point. It was the best suggestion anyone had to offer. Hell, the _only_ suggestion, really. And it was beyond clear that Iron Man was very well educated. That level of understanding of the physics and theory of wormhole travel went way beyond Steve's, and he'd had to master the basics to make Captain.

"Well," Iron Man hesitated, "I don't know yet. I've been working at the problem since we left the colony but coming up empty."

Something about that statement rang false, but Steve couldn't pin down what it was. "Think you can come up with something before we have to wade into battle?"

"I can try." Iron Man didn't sound optimistic about it.

"Do that," Steve instructed, "and keep me updated."

\------

"-- worried about him," Barton was muttering, apparently to the tabletop, as Steve entered.

"It'll work out," Romanov told him, catching Steve's eyes. "It always does. Captain," she raised her voice, "come on in. There's Khalan."

"Don't even try it," Barton advised sagely, "it'll scorch your mouth off."

"I heal quickly," Steve replied, filing away the exchange he'd overheard to puzzle over later, "and some Khalan would be welcome."

Most other crops considered staples on Earth had been successfully brought to the colony and cultivated there. Coffee was one of the few that had not been, despite repeated attempts. The creativity of the Human race in finding new stimulants was not to be underestimated, however. Some enterprising agroscientist had managed to cross just the right strains of tea and tobacco plants to create an unholy monster of a plant he'd called Limh Khala. Khalan, brewed from its bark, was the result. It looked like tea, tasted like fine cigars, and smelled like mint. There was nothing better for long nights spent on watch.

Stepping over to the gently steaming pot of Khalan and pouring himself a measure, Steve turned back to face the two SHIELD agents. "Have you heard from Iron Man whether he's made any progress? I don't want to pressure him, but we're running out of time."

Both SHIELD agents shook their heads. The galley stayed silent.

After a few contemplative minutes, Steve took his serving of Khalan and left the room. 

_The plot thickens. Barton wouldn't worry about anyone on my team. Which means it must be Iron Man he's concerned about._

\------

"Hey Cap," Iron Man's voice rang out in the cargo bay with what felt like forced cheer. "What are you doing down here in my lair?"

"Thought I'd stop by for a visit. We'll be needing those battle suits soon, and I haven't even had a chance to try mine on." Steve pointed to it with his chin. When he looked at it properly, he raised an eyebrow at Iron Man. "You're a deft hand with a paint sprayer."

The suit, which had previously been bare metal and lightly battle-scarred, now gleamed in the dim light. Iron Man had clearly been working on it and tweaking it. And painted it in Steve's signature colors. The red, white and blue he'd chosen as a young private, in remembrance of the martial might of the United States -- a state that no longer existed, and hadn't for centuries -- had quickly gained him the nickname 'Captain America', and it had stuck despite his protests.

Bucky had gifted him with a ridiculous antique shield painted in those colors, once. It had stayed on Steve's wall for a while before being lost in one of his base transfers.

And here he was faced with something much the same. Doubtless because Buck had talked to Barton, who must've talked to Iron Man. Iron Man, whose body language strongly implied he was grinning broadly at Steve's reaction.

"You don't like it?" Iron Man asked him, a note of sadness in his voice that had to be fake, it was so exaggerated.

"It's striking, that's for sure," Steve parried. "Still doesn't measure up to your paint job."

"Hah!" Iron Man turned briskly toward a work bench covered in battle suit parts and paint cans. "I can fix that!"

Somehow, that devolved into a game of keep-away, and Steve found himself laughing harder than he had in ... Realizing he couldn't remember sobered him a little. He stepped back, realizing they were chest-to-chest, and set the can of red paint back on the table. "Thanks. I needed that."

"What, the new paint job?" Iron Man deliberately chose to misunderstand. "Come on back anytime you need a new one."

Steve gave him a long look, but Iron Man's blank faceplate gave away nothing. "Alright," he agreed. "Now, about that suit."

As Iron Man helped him into the bulky suit, and showed him how the controls worked, Steve couldn't help but think that this was dangerous. He'd barely known Iron Man for three days, and he was already getting far more attached than was wise. Much more, and he knew he'd end up falling for a man whose face he'd never seen.

Bucky and Peggy would never let him live that down.

\------

The following morning, they triggered an ambush, and Steve was very glad he'd asked Iron Man for a crash course in how the battle suits worked.

Since he lived in his battle suit, Iron Man was the first to join the battle, hurrying into the airlock and slapping at the button that started it cycling. The Chitauri, perched on their ubiquitous sledge bikes, dove toward the ship on a strafing run as Peggy and Gabe returned fire from the ship's two sets of plasma guns. Bucky was suiting up beside Steve and cursing the unfamiliar closures on the suit's protective under layer. Steve, tired of hearing Bucky swear at them, took matters into his own hands and started doing them up for his friend.

"Whoa, Steve," Bucky yelped, either not knowing or not caring that his comms were on, "little bit forward, there. That's the kind of action smarter people than you save for _after_ the battle."

"Well well. That kind of action, is it?" Barton chimed in, exiting the airlock to join the fray as Steve got Bucky buttoned up and hit the switch to close and seal his armour. "I didn't think you swung that way, Barnes."

"Not for Steve, I don't. Ew." Bucky made a very expressive grimace as he hurried toward the airlock. "That would be like fucking my brother, and no."

"Oh for--" Steve rolled his eyes and followed. "Shut up and focus on fighting, Barton."

"Sir, yes sir." Steve could hear the mocking salute that would have accompanied the words, but since Barton was busy shooting down the Chitauri swarming their ship, he let it go.

"You've got a group coming in on your 4'o'clock, high, Barton," Iron Man put in, getting the conversation back on track. "Barnes, you'll want to keep an eye on the area below the ship as you exit."

"Roger that." Bucky turned to him. "Cap, overall orders?"

"Just keep them away from the ship. We can deal with injuries if we have to, but if they cripple the ship we're in deep--"

"Shit!" Iron Man yelped, twisting and rolling away from a burst of concentrated fire. It left his armour scorched and dented. "Oh, that does it," he growled. "I just finished touching up my paint job."

"Captain," Peggy called to him as he experimented with the hard light shield Iron Man had demonstrated to him the day before, "there's a group out of reach of the guns and heading for the engines."

"I see them." Steve sent his suit jetting toward them. It felt like a lumbering Goliath to him, but the power in its punches wasn't to be underestimated. In contrast, though, Iron Man's sleek armour seemed to slip through space like a fish through water. His suit was far faster and more maneuverable, and it made Steve incredibly jealous.

While he did like punching things as a method of disabling them, he also liked to have other tools in his arsenal besides simple brute force. For all that Peggy made fun of him for preferring frontal assaults to any kind of deception, he did know how to make use of such tactics if needed.

Chasing down the group of Chitauri, Steve set about disabling them, the punches that his suit dealt out sending them flying. 

The ship did end up taking a small amount of damage before Steve could get to the Chitauri trying to cripple her. The engines were saved by Iron Man's timely intervention, in the end, though. Somewhat to Steve's irritation. While he'd been occupied with the group that Peggy had set him on, a second had slipped past him, unseen. Iron Man had swooped in behind them and deftly shot them down one by one. Steve had only seen it happen by chance, as he'd turned to deal with the last of his own opponents. Bucky and Barton had joined them a few seconds later, finished mopping up the rest of the Chitauri, and the skirmish had ended with a suddenness that would have left Steve reeling had he not been as experienced a fighter as he was.

The four of them headed back to the airlock in an almost meditative silence as Peggy listed off the damage the ship had taken. It wasn't much, thankfully. "Captain," she informed him over the open comm link that would transmit to everyone, "engine output is reduced by about a quarter due to external hull damage and what I believe is a leak somewhere near the fuel injectors. Estimate we will arrive at the wormhole within three standard days of our target."

That was a narrow margin, it needed to be said, but Steve groaned. Fury had given them a very strict timetable to keep.

"Sounds like that should be possible to repair," Iron Man said, sounding like he was mentally reviewing blueprints, for all that Steve knew he'd never been aboard this ship before this joint mission.

"You can fix real-space drive engines?" Bucky asked, his tone about as skeptical as Steve suspected his own would have been.

"I can," Iron Man replied. "That does mean I'll have to spend time on that rather than the problem of closing the wormhole, though."

Silence reigned until they were back aboard the ship. Iron Man broke it with what Steve just knew was resignation is his tone. "Do me a favor," he said, "and don't break anything else on this trip, hm?"

Barton huffed at him. "No promises, man."

"That's exactly the problem," Iron Man tossed over his shoulder, heading out of the room. "Someone bring me whatever replacement parts you have aboard."

Not at all sure what he was feeling at the moment, Steve wanted to pinch the bridge of his nose. Clearly he wasn't going to get a chance to try cracking the mystery that was Iron Man tonight. That upset him far more than it should have. He'd known the man for all of three days. He had neither right nor reason to want to peel back the layers of literal and metaphorical armour the man wore with such surprising grace.

And yet, he did want to.

He wanted to ask who Iron Man was under the mask, to solve the mystery surrounding Iron Man's past and abilities. To invite Iron Man to his bunk.

The whole situation was maddening. It was as though the knowledge that he shouldn't was making him want to all the more, and sure, the lure of the forbidden was a thing that he'd experienced before. But he'd been able to resist, then. None of the other outside agents his team had ever worked with, mysterious as they had been, had ever affected him like this.

Biting back a curse, Steve started stripping off his battle suit, realizing that while he'd stood, lost in his thoughts, Bucky and Barton had just about finished the task themselves.

"You okay in there, Cap?" Bucky asked him, concerned.

"I'm fine," Steve told his friend, pulling the suit helmet off his head. "Just thinking." 

Barton gave him a knowing look, but thankfully said nothing. Steve didn't like knowing that the guy could see right through him, but there wasn't much he could do about it.

As long as Barton didn't say anything in front of Bucky or the others, Steve decided, he could cope.

\------

The rest of their trip was as uneventful as the first couple of days, much to everyone's surprise. Iron Man had gotten the engines back online quickly, and announced that he'd also increased the output by a factor of two. Peggy had looked impressed. That issue dealt with, they'd traveled on. Over the course of the journey, they'd spotted a number of Chitauri scouts and patrols, but managed to outrun all of them, thanks to the increased engine power Iron Man had gifted them with.

Steve wasn't sure how to feel about that. He felt oddly jealous, watching Iron Man interact with his crew, all of them much more comfortable exchanges than any Iron Man had ever had with him. Even during the time they'd spent going over Steve's suit and its functions, there had been an almost electric charge in the air. Some expectation -- probably on both their parts -- that something would happen, or that the other would do something.

He wasn't sure how it was possible, without having had even a glimpse of who was under the armour, but Steve found himself attracted to this guy. Iron Man was making Steve question all manner of things about himself, and not just his motivations. He'd always been comfortable in his attraction to women, though there hadn't been many in his life. The only one he'd ever dated seriously had been Peggy, and that had only lasted for a few months before they'd ended up on the same team and had to give up the liaison to keep the team and each other.

He'd never really given any thought to the idea of being attracted to men. Well, until now. Over the past two days, watching Iron Man get more comfortable with his crew, and having to deal with increasingly heated dreams, Steve had been forced to deal with the issue. His sexuality hadn't been a part of his identity that he'd bothered to explore in detail. But the memory of his dream last night...

He wasn't sure he wanted to find out whether Iron Man's armour could actually be used for that kind of thing, but the idea was enough to bring a flush to his ears and throat.

He couldn't say a word about it, either. That was the worst part. This was a suicide mission, and everyone aboard knew it. Iron Man's admission during that planning session that felt so long ago said it plainly: any solution they could come up with would be improvised at best, and likely to fail.

If it did fail, they would be immediately overrun by the Chitauri contingents guarding the wormhole. The only reason this stood half a chance of working was that, right now, the bulk of the Chitauri forces were still on the far side of the wormhole, and only so many ships could cross the wormhole per standard day, or the wormhole would collapse in on itself from the strain.

Those who had come through so far were not enough to overwhelm SHIELD forces, luckily. They'd been lucky that the Chitauri had only sent their smaller ships thus far, but that state of affairs wouldn't last. SHIELD was fighting the worst kind of attrition warfare right now, and everyone knew that it wasn't a tenable position for them to be in.

That was why it was so vital that the wormhole be closed.

And that they find a way to do it.

\------

Their meal the night before the critical part of their mission was strained.

"Iron Man," Barton asked, breaking the silence that had fallen as they ate, wrapped in their own thoughts, "you come up with anything?"

"Well," Iron Man replied, sounding distinctly uncomfortable, "yes and no."

"Go on," Romanov prompted him.

"There are only two options I can see," Iron Man admitted. "An improvised explosive that would cause a resonance effect in the wormhole, which I'd have to place just in front of its mouth..."

"Or?" Romanov asked when he trailed off.

Iron Man hesitated, clearly not wanting to voice the other option, but knowing his teammate would pry it out of him somehow. "Or I could detonate my suit's power source once I'm inside it."

Steve found himself on his feet without consciously getting there. "No."

"Cap," Iron Man replied, "we all knew this hitch might lead to the end of the road when we signed up for it."

"I don't care." Steve could distantly feel himself shaking. "There's a world of difference between 'might' and 'will'."

"And you care so much about this team and your ship that you'd let the Chitauri do as they please with everything humanity's built?" Iron Man shook his head, the sound of his armour's actuators loud in the silence of the room. "Don't misunderstand me, Captain; I would much rather not kill myself if I can avoid it, for all that my past sins call for it. I like to think I can do some good in this world. But if all else fails, and there are no options left, I _will_ pull that trigger."

Steve left the room.

\------

Their approach to the wormhole itself was less than smooth. It was as though they'd used up all their good luck on their journey into the sector, and were now paying for that in spades.

The team ran into four separate ambushes along the way, each one larger than the last, and each leaving one of their number injured. The only one of them that had escaped uninjured thus far was Gabe, who'd opted to stay aboard ship to keep her on course and defended. Barton was out of the fight entirely, his left leg badly broken at the end of the first skirmish. He claimed he could still fight, but Steve wasn't about to let him unless the situation became truly dire. He pointed Barton at the ship mounted guns instead.

Mollified somewhat by that, though he complained about the inaccuracy of those guns until Bucky rolled his eyes and began pointing out just how good it was possible to be with them, the SHIELD agent accepted the idea.

Bucky, who'd taken a relatively minor hit to his left arm in the same fight, had decided to spend his time aboard ship in his undersuit layer. It was clear to Steve that Bucky suspected they would be getting into more of a fight before they reached the mouth of the wormhole and was ready to fight anytime it became needful. It helped that, despite their (mostly friendly) rivalry, Steve could tell Bucky actually trusted Barton to have their backs on the ship guns well enough to make a difference, even as far away as Bucky tended to go in skirmishes. Steve accepted Barton's skill as given, after that revelation.

The second skirmish had resulted in Iron Man taking a bad hit to his lower back from a Chitauri who'd gotten the drop on him. He'd groaned, then gone comms silent, and Steve, not sure what had happened, had just seen red. By the time he'd come back out of the haze that had put him in, the only live figures on the battlefield had been his team, and they had been very carefully but persistently hailing him. Iron Man had been nowhere to be seen.

"Cap," Barton had taken the first opportunity to tell him, his tone carefully calm, "take a breath and quit worrying. He's back aboard ship and hammering the dents out of his backplate."

Bucky had teased him about that right up until they'd hit the third ambush. That one had left Romanov with a concussion, thanks to her attempt to keep Bucky's hide intact.

It was the final encounter that had them all fighting for their lives, though. The number of Chitauri in each wave had been steadily increasing. They'd managed to keep control of the first three fights, but this close to the wormhole, there were far more enemies than in the previous fight. At Steve's estimate, the last fight they'd been in had been against a force the equivalent of a human company strength. What they were facing here was likely four times that, if not more.

Rather than try to give any last minute instructions before they took the field, all Steve did was look each of his team members in the eye and say, "Don't die. Just about anything else, we can fix."

The fight was grueling and brutal, in its intensity. Steve lost sight of his compatriots almost immediately, and he himself had no time to track them down. For every Chitauri he took out of action, three more seemed to spring up to take its place, and all of them were intent on killing him. 

Before he could fight his way free to get above the fight and try to regain his perspective of the overall battle, a wave of light went through the apparently endless stream of Chitauri. It sent some -- those nearest the center of the explosion -- tumbling, but that was about the extent of its effect. Romanov, who'd been too close when it went off, cursed roundly and savagely beat back those Chitauri trying to swarm her.

It was Bucky who worked out what had happened. Or, more accurately, what _hadn't_. "Fucking hell," he swore, "Iron Man, please tell me that was some Chitauri weapon and not the bomb you were trying to build."

Steve went cold.

"Wish I could, Buckaroo," came the response Steve had known Iron Man would make. "Guess I'll see you all on the flip side. Give Pepper my love."

"Iron Man," Steve tried, "wait! Who's--"

"Ask Fury." Iron Man cut him off, tone somewhere between resigned and hurt. "Once I'm gone, he'll have no reason to keep the secret any--"

Iron Man's voice cut off into static, and a second wave of light, far brighter than the first, washed over the battlefield.

This time, Steve noted, numb to his fingertips, more than three quarters of the Chitauri went limp and lifeless immediately.

\------

In the end it took them nearly a full day cycle to call Fury, let him know what had happened and what Iron Man had requested, and then comb through the field of bodies.

Steve had insisted on that, insisted that they find a body to bury. Metaphorically, at least. He was very firmly of the opinion that, after the kind of sacrifice that Iron Man had made, he deserved at least that much. 

The day passed in a haze. Steve took advantage of the focus required by his search to keep himself too busy to think about the pain numbing him to his core. He'd gotten far too attached to Iron Man in the short five days they'd spent on this mission, and he knew it. He had known deep in his bones that it was a bad idea and dangerous, but he'd gone and done it anyway. And so here he was, burying himself in work, like he had after he'd lost the other Commandoes. That he still had Peggy and Bucky and Gabe had helped a lot, but learning that the others had all either been killed in action or otherwise gone had _hurt_. That had been like losing family all over again, and Iron Man's sacrifice had brought it all back, making Steve feel as though it had happened yesterday.

\------

Steve had been out-ship long enough to be near the end of his current tank of air, and he knew he was getting tired. But, on the other hand, sleep was not an option, right now. There was no way he'd be able to keep his eyes closed and his mind clear long enough. Not without wearing himself out.

After a full day of fighting and the retrieval mission, he almost missed it when his suit radio hissed static at him.

The sheer number of Chitauri bodies had been attenuating all their communications signals ever since the end of the battle, so Steve didn't realise the significance of the signal until long after it had repeated a few times.

"Barton," he cued his comm, "was that you, trying to say something?"

"Wha-- --o id-- --mean. I'm tryi-- --alibrate." Barton replied.

Not quite sure what that meant, Steve shrugged to himself. "Roger that. Keep me posted."

It took Steve a while to triangulate the signal, weak as it was. As he searched, he started coming across tiny red and gold lacquered fragments, and he did his best to convince himself that the signal was probably just coming from some part of Iron Man's suit that contained a damaged radio, trying to quell the utterly unfounded rising hope.

He didn't bother trying to parse the complicated mix of emotions that flooded through him when he finally spotted a larger speck of bright red and gold among the stars. The suit was very heavily damaged, to the point where Steve was sure it was inoperable. The bright ring of white-blue light at the center of Iron Man's chestplate was just barely alive, flickering feebly as though trying to reignite, and several of the armour plates around it were so scarred and deformed that Steve suspected the suit's arms wouldn't move from the position they were in. A position that looked almost like Iron Man had tried to reach out and embrace the waiting skies.

As he got closer, Steve idly identified a small air leak near Iron Man's neck, where the collarplates and chestplate met.

There was no way the pilot could have survived that explosion, and then had enough air reserves to last a full day in space with his suit in this condition. Iron Man had done just what he'd threatened and sacrificed himself to stop the Chitauri invasion.

Ignoring the close-quarters safety protocols that had been drilled into him and the proximity alarms that sounded from the interface of his suit, he jetted over, cursing his suit for being the slow lumbering beast that Iron Man had thought suited his fighting style, and pulled Iron Man into his arms. Even this close, he couldn't make out anything on his sensors but the intermittent radio static coming from the suit, and his stubbornly rising hopes sank again.

\------

When Steve brought Iron Man back in through the ship airlock, Romanov and Barton were there, waiting for him.

"He left instructions," was all Romanov said, quiet and solemn. "Bring him to the workshop he set up."

Steve wasn't sure, but he thought maybe he could briefly see a tear shine in her eye. It was more emotion that he was used to seeing from the stoic agent, and very nearly brought him to tears himself. 

The ruin of all his half-worked out thoughts and his vaguely imagined relationship with whoever was in the suit seemed to press down on him harder than they had before. Steve nodded, and Romanov turned to lead the way to Iron Man's workshop.

The large space was a mess; parts were scattered everywhere on the floor in the aftermath of what was probably an emotional outburst, and several scorch marks marred the walls. Steve couldn't even find it in himself to be angry. He felt much the same at the moment.

"On the workbench," Romanov instructed him, and Steve complied, though he waited for Barton to hobble into the room before he did.

"What did he want us to do, exactly?" Steve asked.

Barton made a face. "Pry him out of that armour, then slag it and make sure his identity never got out to the public."

Anonymous in death as he had been in life. There was a certain poetic appropriateness to that. Steve hated it. "Did he ever tell you who he was?"

"No," Romanov said, shaking her head, "but we guessed."

"He never was that subtle," Barton agreed. He sighed heavily, swiping at his face with his forearm. "Let's get this over with."

They started with the suit's boots and shin plates, and worked their way up to his hips. Iron Man's armour, Steve learned in the process, was far more modular than was standard. The gauntlets and lower arm guards followed. Almost before he realised what was happening, Iron Man was down to his helmet and chestplate.

Steve hesitated. Romanov's hand rested on his for a moment, and Steve just knew she had guessed how he'd felt about Iron Man. "He's a tough person not to like," she said, "despite his abrasive personality." 

A beat later, she was lifting away the chestplate, revealing that the ring of bright blue white light was actually a part of Iron Man's body, and far more scars than Steve had thought to see on anyone not serving a lifetime hitch in the army or in SHIELD, and then the faceplate itself.

"Hey, Tony," Barton whispered, turning away after a long moment and closing his eyes.

Romanov was a bit more daring. She leaned in to drop a chaste kiss on his forehead. Then, weirdly, she paused.

"Clint, come here," she demanded, "confirm this for me."

His tone puzzled, Barton did as she'd asked, sending a few parts skittering across the floor as he shuffled closer to her. "Confirm what?"

"He's alive."

\------

The nearest ship with medical facilities worth the name was days away. The facilities aboard their own cruiser were far cruder and more limited, but it was the best they could do. For the time being.

Iron Man wasn't responsive when Romanov tried to wake him. Hell, he was only barely breathing unassisted, but he was _alive_ , and no one aboard could quite believe it.

Steve hadn't recognised Stark at first. Barton had used the guy's first name, and Romanov hadn't named him at all, when they'd pried him out of the remains of his armour.

Romanov and Peggy had helped Gabe stabilise Iron Man in the ship's tiny excuse for a medbay, and sent Steve back up to the bridge of the ship. He'd only obeyed reluctantly, and would have vastly preferred to follow them and help if he could.

Instead, Steve had plotted the fastest course possible back to SHIELD HQ. There was no way they could take their patient anywhere else, and (luckily for Steve's fraying nerves) at least his condition wasn't worsening.

As he'd piloted the ship, he'd thought. About what had happened, and what had been revealed. Tony looked very familiar somehow, though Steve couldn't seem to put his finger on why, at first. It had only been after he'd gotten a call from a very professional-looking lady -- who he had found out was Pepper, shortly after the call had started -- less than a day cycle after they'd contacted Fury, that he'd made the connection between the Starktech logo behind her in the frame and Tony.

It had taken him most of the rest of the trip back out of the remote sector the wormhole had been located in to wrap his head around the knowledge that they had Tony Stark aboard their ship.

Iron Man -- no, Tony, Steve corrected the thought, still somewhat boggled by the idea that the man inside the suit had turned out to be none other than Tony Stark, multibillionaire business tycoon -- definitely had some explaining to do.

\------

As they approached SHIELD HQ, Steve called ahead to notify Fury's second in command that Iron Man needed medical attention, as did Agent Barton and Bucky.

When they arrived, a team of SHIELD medics in white was waiting with a gurney. They hurried aboard, transferred Tony to the gurney, made sure his chest and face were covered, and rushed him back off the ship. A second team appeared a few seconds later, and chivvied Barton and Bucky off ship and into the massive medical facilities HQ had to offer. Steve was escorted firmly into a very long debrief, albeit unwillingly. He'd much rather have followed his injured crewmembers into medical to keep tabs on them.

It took almost a full day in the SHIELD HQ medical facilities for Iron Man to recover enough for his eyes to flutter open. Steve knew because he counted the hours.

He'd made his way into the private room that had been reserved for Tony as soon as the debrief had ended, and staked out a chair. As the hours had passed, he'd spent most of them arguing with himself whether he should make a move. He still hadn't come to a decision, second guessing each new one he made, when Tony woke with a stuttering gasp.

"Hey," he said, making Iron Man's eyes snap over to him rather than blinking at the ceiling, dumbfounded. "Hey, relax, it's me. You're fine."

"What the hell happened out there? I thought I was very specific in my instructions."

Steve raised a sarcastic eyebrow at him. "Yeah, you were. But there was no way I was about to leave a man behind on the field. Much less after he sacrificed himself to save all of humanity. When we got you back aboard ship, somehow you were still breathing."

"Huh."

"That was our reaction, too," Steve joked. Then, making a spur of the moment decision, he said, "After all this I have only one question, really."

"Which is?"

"Can I take you out to dinner?"

Tony had stared at him, stunned, for the better part of a minute, and Steve had gotten more and more uncomfortable with each passing second. Just before he reached his limit, just before he was about to throw in the towel, apologise, and leave, Tony finally replied. "As long as it's somewhere more private than this."


End file.
